Without Private Key and Key Phrase it is very difficult to steal Bitcoin. Nevertheless, it is possible to do it through detours. In a medium post, a user named “CryptoNerd” declares that he thinks the Coinbase theory is unlikely. Here you can see that the individual coins have been sent to over 90 different addresses in order to “dilute” them. This serves to cover up the traces in order to sell them bit by bit. According to this theory, there would be no major dump, the Bitcoin price would not be significantly affected.

Fear of loss of Bitcoin profit

This theory follows previous Bitcoin profit theory, also here movements would serve following veiling. In an announcement on December 3, Sigal Madelker announced that the United States Treasury would step up its efforts to combat money laundering and illegal activities in the crypto industry. In the course of an action against Iranian blackmailers, the anti-terror department of the USA had managed for the first time to clearly assign Bitcoin addresses to individuals. This is what it says in detail:

“As Iranian […] players try to abuse the digital currency [Bitcoin] to facilitate illegal activities, financial institutions, including exchanges and other providers of digital currency services, must protect themselves from the risks of supporting these malicious players. With its technical expertise, the digital currency industry must develop its networks and take the necessary steps to prevent illegal operators from using its services. For example, shortly after the appointment last week, we saw at least one compliance company that not only quickly informed its customers about our sanctions, but also sent them additional information related to the due diligence they were carrying out quickly. That’s exactly what we want to see in this and other areas.”

According to this theory, in line with CryptoNerd’s theory, the movement would argue that coins would be moved to disguise their origin. This could lead to an exchange for privacy coins or the use of Bitcoin tumblers.

Miners want to cash out to buy new Bitcoin profit

According to F2pool founder Mao Shixing, between 600,000 and 800,000 miners have been taken off the Bitcoin profit grid since mid-November. Due to the strong price losses of the continuing bear market, Bitcoin profit no longer seemed profitable – we reported. In the same breath, a correspondingly large number of mining equipment was sold. To counter this, Bitmain has announced the Antminer S15 for December. With the reduced difficulty and the new device Bitcoin Mining shall become more profitable again. According to this theory, the large amount of Bitcoin would be used to cash out and buy new miners with the new capital.

Conclusion: No reason for FUD
Probably the most likely theory is that Coinbase is trying to provide more liquidity on its stock market. This would not lead to a bigger dump, as would the theories of concealment. If there were indeed a larger mining pool behind it and Bitcoin were to flood the market soon, there would be a danger. However, given the current market situation, this is unlikely.

What do you think of the theories? Is Satoshi Nakamoto behind the movements and wants to sell all his coins because he suddenly became poor? Or does Craig Wright want to dump the Bitcoin rate so far to push Bitcoin SV up with his profits?

The authors note that most pump-and-dump activities are coordinated via Messenger Telegram. The initiator(s) first found a Telegram Channel and try to attract as many participants as possible. Xu and Livshits name 1,000 members as a typical threshold to reach before a pump starts. Usually the communication goes only in one direction: Only the organizer is allowed to post in the channel. This distinguishes a telegram channel from a telegram group.

Bitcoin formula Announcement

When enough members have gathered in the Bitcoin formula group, the big waiting begins. The pump organizer or channel administrator first announces the exact time when the pump should take place. The administrator does not reveal which coin it is. Instead, he keeps the group members at the bar with countdowns, motivating words and behavioural strategies until the coin is announced. This usually takes a few days.

Announcement of the Bitcoin trader

At the agreed time, the Bitcoin trader then announces the coin to be pumped on onlinebetrug.de. This is usually done using an image file so that no bots can “read along”. This message means for the members of the channel the signal to buy the token. Through the concerted action, the price of the coin usually rises many times over within a few minutes. During this time, the organizer of the pump summons the members of the channel to still hold their coins so that outsiders can still jump on the alleged moon rocket.

Dump
Already after a few minutes, in some cases even seconds, the price of the pumped coin has reached its peak. At the first sign of a sinking price, the wave of panic selling then begins and the price rapidly plunges to the level before the pump. The initiator of a successful pump and dump is the one who benefits most:

PumpOlymp – Knowing where
In order to get an overview of the pumping activities on Telegram, the researchers fished data from the website pumpolymp.com. The site lists telegram channels dedicated to this form of market manipulation. In this way, the authors identified 220 pump-and-dump activities for the period between 19 July and 18 November this year.

Starting today, security researchers from Avast will demonstrate at the Mobile World Congress 2018 how a modern television can be used for monero-cryptomining. Viewers can watch live how the device is infected with malware. All Internet of Things (IoT) devices, including traffic lights, cameras, WLAN routers, loudspeakers, intelligent refrigerators, other modern kitchen appliances, thermostats, regulators and much more are suitable for this purpose.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is becoming more and more extensive for the Bitcoin trader

Worldwide, around 500 million devices and Bitcoin trader services are connected to the Internet, and the number is rising rapidly. Despite all the advantages offered by modern technologies such as Smart TV or Smart Home, it is also important to take a look at the Bitcoin trader risks. Hacking smart devices is no longer something only a few geniuses can do.

Future hackers no longer even have to try out for themselves which devices are susceptible to takeover by third parties. This information can be easily obtained from the Shodan.io website after registration. This is a kind of search engine for hackers. Listed are the security holes or standard passwords of all intelligent devices with Internet connection. Shodan.io searches the Internet daily and analyzes the results to keep the database up to date. For the very lazy hackers there are automatic tools such as AutoSploit. This script takes over the devices at home at the push of a button. Of course, this is not legal.

This accessibility to sensitive information naturally threatens the privacy of people who use modern security cameras or smart speakers at home, for example, to film or listen to those affected. On the multilingual website Insecam.org, the live stream from countless unprotected video cameras is transmitted to the net as a deterrent in order to inform the owners about the threats to their modern devices. Related to Germany, this is a total of 500 IP cameras, whose live images are available there around the clock. Also all morally questionable motives were removed according to own statement from the data base. Since the operators of the cameras have never changed the preset passwords to control the devices, the transmissions can of course also intercept third parties.

Capturing smart TVs for the crypto trader

In addition to such use cases for hacking smart devices, there is now another one that is particularly relevant for crypto trader affine devices: https://www.geldplus.net/en/crypto-trader-review/ Employees of Avast, the manufacturer of antiviruses, want to demonstrate how easy it is to take over a modern television set including an Internet connection at the trade fair currently taking place in Barcelona. In the live experiment, a smart TV is captured in order to dig for Monero. We have already reported several times about JavaScript on web servers and other malware that can be used to abuse PCs, smartphones, SCADA controllers for wind turbines and much more to dig for crypto currencies. Cyber criminals have now targeted the IoT’s hardware in view of the sheer number of devices.

According to the Shodan database, there are over 58,000 smart devices in the network in Barcelona alone that would be suitable for a takeover. Only devices with a fast CPU or graphics card are actually suitable for crypto mining.

Due to the comparatively low margins for the mining of IoT devices, hackers are encouraged to infect even more hardware in order to generate sufficient sales.

For owners, this can result in an excessive electricity bill, increased response times, reduced performance and a shortened lifespan of the affected devices.

Websites such as Insecam or Shodan and projects such as the one presented by Avast impressively show that a more precise knowledge of the security precautions of modern technology should be more closely checked in-house for security. Accordingly, it should be checked where, for example, the standard passwords can be changed.

The price per Bitcoin has reached the expected target of 2,000 US dollars and is not only causing euphoria in the digital currency market. On early Saturday morning, the price broke through the magical 2,000 US dollar mark for the first time with 2,014 US dollars and a market capitalisation of 34 billion US dollars.

There had been speculation for quite some time that the 2000 mark would be reached in a timely manner, and the price stabilised at around 1,800 US dollars.

It was only on Friday that the value of the digital token broke through the 1,900 mark and thus started the rally in the direction of 2,000 US dollars.

What does the strong price increase mean for Bitcoin, the entire community and the ecosystem of the digital currency? The opinions of the experts differ widely here.

No healthy growth according to Bitcoin news

Vinny Ligham was not very pleased with the Bitcoin news about the rapid course of the share price and regards it as detrimental to the Bitcoin news ecosystem: “I don’t think the price increase is healthy, but I’m sure everyone else knows that better. I observe and wait.”

Malcolm Macleod: Problems still persist
Gulden Wallet developer Malcolm Macleod believes that without a fundamental basis, the price has been pushed up too much, ultimately damaging the system. He referred to the continuing scaling problems and the resulting number of unconfirmed transactions in the Bitcoin network. Currently, a maximum of 7 transactions per second can be processed in the network.

“The whole thing is a double-edged sword, it has something good, but also something bad,” says Malcom.

More money inflow via Bitcoin formula

Alexandro Colorado of Bitcoin Mexico thinks differently about the Bitcoin formula scam. Although Bitcoin certainly has a scaling problem, he sees the rising share price as a logical consequence: “It’s logical because more and more money is flowing into the Bitcoin formula system,” Alexandro told Cointelegraph.

Nathan T. Freeman of Cryptopulco says:

“Bitcoin’s value is rising as more and more people agree to part with their Fiat currencies and invest in Bitcoin. If you try to explain why people are already willing to do this, you are projecting a motive for their subjective value and you can’t. Even if the motive may be right, you can’t prove it. It is a sea of individual decisions. It’s all good.”

Will the Bitcoin bubble come in 2019?
Alexandro Colorado:

“A bubble is created by manipulation, but what we are currently seeing is something completely different. Companies also growing by billions a month, why shouldn’t that be possible for a crypto currency? Just because many people don’t yet understand or trust digital currencies doesn’t mean we’re in a bubble.”

Vinny Hingham responded to CoinTelegraph’s question whether we were in a bubble with the following answer:

“Yes, but also the people who screamed in 2011 that we were in a bubble were wrong. It took 2 years until the big bang.”

Malcolm McLeon showed himself insecure about whether it was a bubble. He can’t explain for sure what triggered the recent course rally..:

“I think there’s a big chance we’re in a bubble, but I hope I’m wrong.”

“There is only one big event that will significantly shape Bitcoin’s future and that is the blocksized debate. All other factors are beyond Bitcoin’s control and cannot be influenced. However, we are already talking here about predicting global effects and major political shifts.”

“Predicting a bubble is like throwing a die and anyone who claims they can predict a bubble is a coin thrower.”

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has again postponed a decision on the admission of a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF). The proposal submitted by the CBOE was for the introduction of a physically backed Bitcoin ETF called VanEck SolidX Bitcoin Trust. The Commission combines its decision with an appeal to the interested public to comment on individual aspects of the submitted proposal.

And every day the groundhog greets

The decision of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to allow itself even more time with regard to Bitcoin ETF comes as no surprise. The Commission does not want to rush into anything – and that is a good thing. In its opinion on the postponement, the Commission pointed out the argumentation of the applicant CBOE. Subsequently, the SEC encouraged the public to examine whether the arguments of the stock exchange were sufficient “to protect investors and the public interest”. This call has a good chance of falling on fertile ground. After all, the SEC had already received over 1,400 comments on the Causa VanEck SolidX Bitcoin Trust by September 19. An overwhelming number of commentators were in favour of approving the Bitcoin ETF.

21 days

The SEC has set a deadline for filing comments of 21 days from the publication of the report. Those who wish to present their arguments or data to the Commission can either complete the form on the SEC website or write a letter or e-mail to the authority.

Mark Preuss is founder and managing director
After studying economics in the Netherlands and China, he held various positions in finance, first in Switzerland and finally in Düsseldorf. Early on, he became enthusiastic about digital currencies and blockchain technology. In the absence of a contact point in German-speaking countries, Mark finally decided at the end of 2013 to launch BTC-ECHO, his own media platform for digital currencies and blockchain. Since then, he has developed BTC-ECHO into the most widely used German-language platform for crypto currencies.